A Realm Reborn

Day 422

I have written pretty damn extensively about video games this year and not for a moment in the past several months have I really let up from my fevered pitch of starting and finishing games. Until recently, they were all games I'd abandoned at some point in the past. Yesterday I finished Torchlight II after having not played it for a good two years or so. I'm happy that it's finally out of the way but there's still quite a few games left to go. My recent impulses have not helped matters whatsoever. Ever since I got a much larger than usual paycheck, I have been repeatedly succumbing to my desires to try new games--until today, when I started playing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

Yep, that's right. I started an MMO.

MMOs are notorious timesinks no matter which way you slice it. I can sit here and rationalize all I want about how I'll spend some time on the game, get to the level cap and be done with it, but it's probably a fairly safe bet that that won't be the extent of it. It's so easy to play an MMO when you feel like there's nothing else better to do. I could be working on clearing out more of my rapidly expanding backlog, but it would probably be easier to wander around and accomplish one of the many and varied tasks available to me on a game on which I've already spent a considerable amount of time.

The most recent MMO I played was Rift and of course before that it was World of Warcraft, a game that I have played off and on a lot over the years. I remember times when World of Warcraft was just about the only game I played until it was inevitably supplanted by League of Legends. For a period of time, the two games competed for my affections and my collection of single-player games suffered in silence in the interim. I'm at a stage of my life where I don't particularly feel the need to play League of Legends anymore and for the most part the appeal of WoW has worn off. It's a game from which I have extracted a considerable amount of enjoyment, but even now with the promise of new and exciting content, I can't say I'm terribly interested. It is just too much of a well-trodden path for me to entertain the thought of revisiting it.

Final Fantasy XIV is a little different. It is still an MMO much in the tradition of EverQuest and WoW and as far as I can tell doesn't go very far in bucking those traditions. The level of craftmanship and detail put into the game is really something else, however--in a way that no other MMO I've tried can really live up to. I've always enjoyed WoW for its simple and distinctive art style and addictive gameplay even as I acknowledge that as the years go by, its graphics have become horrendously dated. On the other hand, FFXIV is beautiful to behold and although its detractors might dismiss the somewhat anime-inflected art style, I find it's right up my alley. As flawed as many of the recent entries into the Final Fantasy series have been, I've always been a proponent of the lush art style. There aren't many Final Fantasy games that aren't great to look at.


What really matters is the gameplay though, right? For an MMO, it's hard to say. So much of what keeps one coming back (at least in my case) is the feel. At this point a game that copies WoW is not likely to keep my attention long. FFXIV fully acknowledges and embraces traditional MMO themes but has a style and aesthetic that is all its own. Final Fantasy mainstays like chocobos and moogles mingle with newly introduced races that somewhat mirror those first introduced in Final Fantasy XI--with enough tweaks and changes to differentiate them.

After 12 levels of gameplay, I can say that on paper, the combat system is nothing to write home about. As a longtime World of Warcraft player, the combat is very famliar to me, aside from one important detail. Enemies will frequently charge powerful attacks that can be dodged. An indicator on the ground will warn the player when one of these attacks is coming. It's a small detail but an appreciated tweak to traditional MMO combat that imparts some variety to the obligatory monster slaying quests peppered throughout the early game. Beyond that, the combat is virtually identical except for the feel of combat. Animations and sound effects are top-notch and a noticeable upgrade from other MMOs I've played. Final Fantasy games in recent years have loads of style and flair--and this MMO is no exception. Combat is fun to watch even if the underlying mechanics involved are relatively simple.

We'll see how I feel once I get to higher levels. There's a ton of content out there that I haven't had the chance to experience and I'm sure there's a lot about the game I don't know about. I've intentionally chosen not to read up on it--partially so I have more to write about but also because I'd rather experience these things without having preconceived notions. The start of the game is promising, but it remains to be seen whether that promise is delivered upon.